The milk of Chernobyl

As a child, I really did not like the milk no matter how much my mother tried to put sugar or chocolate in it. I still don’t like it much. This was a little issue when I grew up between my mother and me. Today I am a Greenpeace campaigner and I came to a remote village in Ukraine. Our mission was to test the milk contamination in the area. We were about 4 hours drive from Chernobyl and even here you can see the contamination - especially in milk, something that is very important part of the daily diet here.

We knew it was contaminated - it was documented soon after the Chernobyl accident - but we were hoping to not to find it. You do not want to measure the milk of these subsistence farmers and tell them that they are poisoning themselves and their children. Long term accumulation of the radioactivity in their bodies is the reason that many children have unusual headaches, lose consciousness, have birth defects. How can you say that to those people whose livelihood depends on? It took us only one day to find samples of milk that were 5 to 16 times higher than the Ukrainian limits for children, 30 times higher than the control samples we had in Kiev where the markets are closely regulated and regularly checked. I wondered if those mothers also insist their kids to drink their milk in the mornings.

When asked, they said they knew the problems with the contamination in their food. Some remember the Chernobyl accident, and the fear at the time that they might all die within a year. They did not die within a year but the consequences of Chernobyl continued and they learned to live with it as a part of their lives. At the local children’s hospital we were told that it was getting worse. There are more and more children every year with problems; weak bones, anemia…etc. The ones with more serious problems are send to the regional hospital and if even more serious, directly to Kiev.

I talked with one of the locals who asked me about our findings. Women were queuing up where we set our portable station measuring activity in milk. They brought their food and asked us to let them know about our findings. I explained one of the women what the situation is, and that necessary support needs to be given to these communities, that Chernobyl is not only the exclusion zone - there is a much wider affected area. She laughed at my ignorance: “no one will care about us” she says. I couldn’t answer her, I couldn’t tell her that they will care.

A lady stopped us in front of the hospital with a little kid four years old. She was crying and asked us if we were doctors, if we could help her. Her little Ivan faints very often. Nobody really explained her what the problem is. Ivan looked at us from his big coat, all his face covered because of the cold weather apart from his eyes. He was a little shy and did not want to talk to us. I couldn’t help Ivan, I won’t be able to help to any of them. I felt so powerless. We went there to find the milk contamination and we found it. It took our little team only one day to find that contamination. It is known by officials in Ukraine and by international institutions that these areas are still very contaminated yet they choose to ignore it and do not do anything about it.

You see if it is far from the public eye in a remote village in Ukraine, it is not a problem for them.

Next month will be the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl. There are already many scientists and officials saying the consequences are not too bad, and it has already passed. There is even talk of opening some of the previously excluded areas for agriculture to symbolize that it is over and we can forget about it. They want to open the land for agriculture, for cattle to graze. Who is going to drink the milk of these cows? Which young mothers will ask their kids to finish their milk? The very people that you and me will never see on TV. They will never be professional spokespeople. Their stories will never be told. The government is working on a new law to lift the status of the Chernobyl invalids , so that they will not get the little financial support they were getting until now. It seems like if those people lived for 25 years after the Chernobyl - well that should be good enough for them.

We cannot forget about Chernobyl, what it has done and what it will continue to do many generations to come. The Chernobyl accident is what every nuclear power plant in the world is capable of doing. When Chernobyl was first built it was thought to be the best, the one that will never have any problems. You know the rest of the story. Hundreds of kilometers away from the exclusion zone there are kids losing their consciousness every now and then again, if they fall when they are riding their bikes they are more likely to break their bones, and it will take longer for them to recover.

Over the last 25 years, the response of the likes of Greenpeace to the Chernobyl disaster has arguably done more harm to the people whose lives were t...

Over the last 25 years, the response of the likes of Greenpeace to the Chernobyl disaster has arguably done more harm to the people whose lives were touched by it than the 1986 core-meltdown ever did. For readers who wish to get a more balanced perspective than the one put above, they can do so here:

Post a comment

OPTIONAL: Register to avoid filling out forms each time you post a comment
Sign Up Here
login via Facebook or Google

(Unregistered) virtualatall
says:

reading this i remembered a story of computer programmer who lived in volvograd. it was of period sometime 2 years after chernobyl. he had to face a s...

reading this i remembered a story of computer programmer who lived in volvograd. it was of period sometime 2 years after chernobyl. he had to face a strange problem of computer crashing at a shipping dock. he checked all the info of cargo passing through there.
He found that whenever shipment of cows comes there, computer crashes. He toook a geiger counter and found those cows radioactive. cows from ukriane were brought up and their meat was mixed with normal meat. this way soviet govt manages food problem. he immediately filed for emigration and fled the country.
i'm surprised to see these things happening quarter century after disaster. even in my country, govt havent able to solve bhopal gas tragedy.

Post a comment

OPTIONAL: Register to avoid filling out forms each time you post a comment
Sign Up Here
login via Facebook or Google

(Unregistered) Blue Ninja
says:

Mr Seaman, Considering the fact that you're an influence peddler who shills for corporations whose only reason for existence is to squeeze as many pen...

Mr Seaman, Considering the fact that you're an influence peddler who shills for corporations whose only reason for existence is to squeeze as many pennies out of whomever runs across their path, your "evidence" is suspect. You're a self-espoused "PR" guy and you expect me to take you seriously, ph-lease.

And Laia, it's true, nothing is safe. Some mental patients effectively drown themselves by obsessive-compulsively drinking glass after glass of water, and we all need water to live right? However, most of these unsafe things don't foul the land for CENTURIES, giving a radically conservative estimate.

The only thing I have to say about providing for the world's energy needs is, there are some big brains out there working on fossil fuels, nuclear, and being able to update your Facebook status. We've got a giant ball out in the middle of the solar system beaming out more energy than even us humans could probably ever use…in one day. Why haven't these supposed "smart" and, supposedly, "conscientious" people put some of their brain power toward harnessing that?

Post a comment

OPTIONAL: Register to avoid filling out forms each time you post a comment
Sign Up Here
login via Facebook or Google

(Unregistered) Aslihan
says:

Dear Paul,

How can you claim you are more balanced than Greenpeace while you have been professionally doing PR for the nuclear industry?
...

Dear Paul,

How can you claim you are more balanced than Greenpeace while you have been professionally doing PR for the nuclear industry?

My blog is intentionally biased towards to those people living in poor remote villages in contaminated zones. I was there and I saw how people suffered and I want everyone to know about it. It's as simple as that.

Post a comment

OPTIONAL: Register to avoid filling out forms each time you post a comment
Sign Up Here
login via Facebook or Google

(Unregistered) Me
says:

"The Chernobyl accident is what every nuclear power plant in the world is capable of doing."
Not even close.
"When Chernoby...

"The Chernobyl accident is what every nuclear power plant in the world is capable of doing."
Not even close.
"When Chernobyl was first built it was thought to be the best."
No, that was just Soviet propaganda.
See:
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1032_web.pdf
http://ukrweekly.com/archive/pdf3/2003/The_Ukrainian_Weekly_2003-04.pdf

Post a comment

OPTIONAL: Register to avoid filling out forms each time you post a comment
Sign Up Here
login via Facebook or Google

(Unregistered) Pink Champaigne
says:

as Bue Ninja said why don't these brainy people use their talents to create a harmless energy source, instead of a hybernating nuclear bomb....imagine...

as Bue Ninja said why don't these brainy people use their talents to create a harmless energy source, instead of a hybernating nuclear bomb....imagine earthquakes occuring in several countries at the same time, I wonder what the result will be and who could safe the people then.....the earth needs more of GREAN PEACE and less of mr. Paul Seaman.